Why Do Americans and Germans Work Different Hours?

This paper documents the difference between the annual hours worked by employed Americans and Germans, decomposes the difference into differences due to vacation and holiday time and to hours worked while on the job, and examines alternative explanations for the difference. Employed Americans work roughly 10-15% more hours than Germans. Since American employment-population rates exceed those of Germans, adult Americans average some 20% more work time than adult Germans. At the same time, Americans show greater preference for additional hours worked than do Germans. Both of these differences developed in the past 20 years. Two decades ago, Americans worked less than Germans, and it was the Germans who wanted to work more hours. Standard labor supply analyses do not appear able to explain this difference. We show that differences in hours worked are related to differences in earnings inequality across countries, and hypothesize that the high rewards to success in the U.S., lack of job security, and low social safety net compared to Germany or other European countries may explain the cross-country differences in an extended supply model.

L’ouverture sur le marché africain

While in the past, Canada has earned a fairly liberal reputation as it developed political relations with African countries, the trend for the 1980s has been to concentrate on promoting trade and investment. In particular, the interest in expanding markets for Canadian manufactured exports has led to the co-ordination of the Export Development Corporation (EDC) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to encourage and support the private sector. As a result, exports to Africa have tripled in the past five years and North Africa (especially Algeria) is becoming a region of major importance for Canadian exporter s. Although in the past the Canadian government has been ambiguous about its approach to promoting trade and investment in white-ruled Southern Africa, it has strengthened its inclination to leave the private sector alone, regardless of the support which Canadian companies are giving to the apartheid system. The before, in the 1980s, Canada's relations with Africa are being increasingly governed by economic imperatives as the government attempts to come to grips with the problems emerging from the economic recession

Does a Flexible Industry Wage Structure Increase Employment?: The U.S. Experience

This paper examines the flexibility of wages across industries inthe U.S. and seeks to determine the potential impact which changes in the industrial wage structure may have for employment. With regard to the flexibility of wages across industries, we find that the U.S., alone among the major OECD countries, has experienced substantial changes in the industry wage structure since 1970, with the variation of log wages among industries increasing dramatically, particularly in the 1970s. This represents a widening of the gap between wages in the high and low wage sectors. In order to evaluate these changes, we estimate equations linking changes in industry wages over an extended period of time to a variety of potential wage determining characteristics. We find that industrial wages are positively correlated with value productivity per worker, even after controlling for institutional and supply side factors which may have contributed to the increased dispersion of wages in the 1970s. Our results are not consistent with the standard competitive model of industry labor markets, in which wages and productivity are uncorrelated across sectors and wages depend on aggregate, rather than sectoral conditions.With regard to the impact of a flexible industry wage structure on employment, we evaluate the circumstances under which flexible wages among industries may be employment enhancing, and the set of circumstances under which flexible wages are likely to be employment reducing. For the U.S.economy in the 1970s we find that the data support the latter set of circumstances. The bottom line of the U.S. experience is that flexible wages by industry have not contributed to employment growth.

Tools for Inclusion: Moving On to High School: A Tip Sheet for Parents of Children on Individualized Education Plans

Time spent in school is probably the single greatest feature of a young person\u27s life. So it only makes sense for parents to make sure their sons and daughters get what they need from school. Even though families don\u27t have much influence over how schools structure courses, there are things they can do to make the most of what schools have to offer. This tip sheet is based on the experiences of students with disabilities in public schools and their families

Length Matters: Message Metrics that Result in Higher Levels of Perceived Partner Responsiveness and Changes in Intimacy as Friends Communicate through Social Network Sites

This study focuses on how young adults enact their relationships in public through self-disclosing interactions on Facebook.  A Facebook self-disclosure status update, along with as many as three corresponding response comments, was copied by each of 271 participants from their own Facebook Wall, and pasted to an online survey.  Status update and response comments contain characters such as letters, numbers, and symbols to express meaning.  Seven textual measures were used to quantify the content of these messages; one such measure was a count of the number of characters contained in each response.  Results show message length is associated with perceived partner responsiveness and feelings of increased intimacy with those who reply to one’s status update with a response comment.  Women, and close friends and family post longer messages.  The outward appearance of a message matters for the perception of responsive communication on Facebook

A multidisciplinary concept analysis of empowerment : implications for nursing.

According to the Institute of Medicine, nursing has failed to effectively shape the health care system and to advocate successfully for patients. Empowerment may be a potent tool to fulfill these responsibilities, yet nurses have not benefited from considering application of the concept to the continuum of health care advocacy in their communities, in their relationships with clients, and in their professional roles within health care organizations. This paper uses concept analysis to examine the attributes, characteristics, and uses of empowerment within diverse disciplines to clarify its meaning and explore its potential application to nursing\u27s challenges that cross settings, disciplines, and time

The Incentive for Working Hard: Explaining Hours Worked Differences in the U.S. and Germany

This paper seeks to explain the greater hours worked by Americans compared to Germans in terms of forward-looking labor supply responses to differences in earnings inequality between the countries. We argue that workers choose current hours of work to gain promotions and advance in the distribution of earnings. Since US earnings are more unequally distributed than German earnings, the same extra work pays off more in the US, generating more hours worked. Supporting this inequality-hours hypothesis, we show that in both countries hours worked is positively related to earnings inequality in cross section occupational contrasts and that hours worked raises future wages and promotion prospects in longitudinal data.

Enhancing Collaboration Between Primary and Subspeciality Care Providers for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs

Summary: The goals of this guide are to discuss the complementary roles of generalist and subspecialist physicians in providing coordinated and effective care for children and youth with special health care needs. We will emphasize the centrality of family-professional partnerships. We also will describe various models for collaboration among generalist and subspecialist physicians and families. Ultimately, the value of this guide will be to serve as a framework for discussion about how primary and subspecialty care physicians can work collaboratively to enhance the quality of care that children and youth with special health care needs and their families receive